Behind the Crown and Blue Roses
by Whitefrost
Summary: King Robert had a special way of showing his family how much he cared for them. - Lyanna Lives! AU.


"Where have you been all night?"

Gendry stiffens in surprise, hearing his mother by marriage shriek. His hand slips and the knife nicks him, cutting into his thumb until he brings his thumb to his lips and dabs at the wound until he's certain enough to bring the dagger back down and begins to carve again, wood shavings falling to the floor by his bare feet. His knife digs into the wood sharply when a plate shatters, and he sees the septa pause in her threading and glance up, a worried expression lighting her eyes before she glanced over sharply at the prince, silently demanding an explanation. Gendry only deepens his frown and resumed his whittling, not looking the septa in the eyes.

"You reek of wine! You were out in the brothels and taverns again, weren't you?"

Gendry stares down at the roguish carving of a stag, wondering if the scar dipping into it's side would be able to be fixed. He carefully begins to smooth it out, before glancing down at his work. It was nothing but a block and a chunk missing with depth and definition showing where the sides and stomach were and a rough outline of where the legs would be. He continues his work even when a door audibly slams and the septa that was supposed to be surveying him jerks in surprise.

After a bout of silence, Gendry furrows his brow and gets to his feet, making sure to hold the knife and soon-to-be stag carefully in his hands before excusing himself from the septa's presence and escaping into the main hall, his footsteps echoing loudly as he moves through the hallways, knocking over a small table once or twice before steadying it. He moves towards the gathering hall and freezes, being careful to remain in the shadows when he notices the King and his Queen glaring daggers at each other.

After Robert had won his rebellion, Ned Stark of Winterfell, Howland Reed of the Neck, and Robert himself had rescued Lyanna from the Tower of Joy, defeating the King's Guard before taking his place on the throne and marrying Lyanna and making her his queen. It had been then that the queen had given birth to Jon Baratheon, who had inherited the Stark look, and thus had wild, untamed dark curls and pale grey eyes. Gendry himself had matted brown hair and the Baratheon blue eyes. Lyanna had found out about Gendry, Robert's bastard, and after from persuasion from Ned Stark, had agreed to have him fostered by herself and Robert, thus legitimizing him. Robert had argued that if he were to legitimize Gendry, then he'll legitimize Edric Storm as well, what with him being from a proper house, even if as a bastard.

It was only after they began to grow up did either Jon or Gendry suspect the nonfunctional parts of their family. Robert was often going away on hunting trips or seen drinking and eating excessively at banquets. Their first fight that Gendry specifically remembered was of who would be the heir to the throne, considering that they were of similar ages. Gendry knew that was still one of their present problems, as well as over Gendry and Jon's supposed interests, which inconveniently meant disinterest in the iron throne. Jon preferred swords and books, wanting to be of an honorable duty like the King's Guard, before Lyanna's son quieted about his wishes and desires and never spoke of it again. Gendry himself wanted to be a blacksmith, but settled for wood whittling when he was disallowed to go into the forge.

Lyanna and Robert fought about numerous other things; but what seemed to be growing in volume was their fights over the King's drinking and whoring problem, which had only gradually becoming increasingly hostile and violent. He could see them at the moment, nose to nose, the Stark wife baring her teeth in a snarl, her hair wild and untamed as it lay across her shoulders. Robert was staggering on his feet, but it was evident that he was furious. Holding up his cup he brought it to his lips, took a long sip before tossing it aside and glared at his wife.

"I told Ned that you would understand," he heard the king growl. "But you're just - just - augh! You are to love me and only me! You are not to talk back at me! This is not the sort of wife I wanted to marry!" He brandished his arms, swaying on his feet, but there was a lethal look in his eyes.

"No," Lyanna barked, her dark grey eyes flashing and her fingers digging into her palms as she forced her hands into fists. "No, you're right. I'm the sort of wife that Rhaegar wanted to marry." The smack that sounded in the room rung clearly, and Lyanna nearly crippled under the force of his beefy hand, red already highlighting her cheek. She swayed heavily to the side before she steadied herself and stared at Robert in surprise. "I will not sit here caged like a - a idog/i!" she ground out, stepping back and her gaze flitting towards the nearest exit. "You - you will not cage the children either! We will not stand for this! We will leave! iI/i will leave!" She turns and lurches forward before Robert lashed out and grabbed onto her wrist, forcing her to the nearest pillar, roughly shoving her against the cold marble. She struggles like a cornered animal, shrieking and wrestling with him, before Gendry deliberately shoves a vase over and it clatters against the floor. While Robert glances over in his direction, Lyanna flees and bursts out of the dining hall, her dark hair whipping after her like a storm.

"What are you doing out of bed, boy?" Robert leers, taking unsteady but heavy steps towards his son. Gendry stiffens, his knuckle-white grip on the unfinished stag and knife flashing brief pain and numbness through his hands. "What are you doing interfering?" A dangerous light brightens in his eyes and his movements quicken, but he stumbles into a nearby table and hovers by the edge before slowly but gradually storming his way over towards his legitimized bastard son. "What have I told you about interfering?" But then he stops, his lips curling as he works his jaw and thoughtfully murmurs, "Yer mother wouldn't have objected me. She would have loved me. Wouldn't you agree, boy?" Gendry is making careful steps backwards, but Robert is watching him with beady eyes, watching his movements and deciding on what to do. "Boy, answer me when I'm talking to you!" he suddenly hollers, lurching forward.

"Gendry," the younger Baratheon corrects, feeling his palm ache and blood trickle down the blade when he applies too much pressure. "For such a high and mighty king, you'd think that you'd remember your own son's name." He forces himself not to cringe when Robert's eyes land on him again and begins to unsteadily lumber towards him. He ducks when Robert finally marches up to him and moves to grab him. "I think it would've been better if I remained a bastard," he says, meaning to enrage his own father. It seems to have worked because Robert swings out again, like a bear swiping, and before Gendry could swoop out of the way again, his forearm is latched onto and crushed bruisingly. He bites down on his tongue and refrains from crying out and instead glares defiantly at his father.

Robert looks about ready to say something else when suddenly Varys sneaks in, the plump man tottering by, his heavy perfume following after him. "Your Grace, if it pleases you, then perhaps Rosa or Gwenlyn would be happy to accommodate you. I'm sure that Baelish would be pleased to lend out his finest whores to you too, of course." His smile was faked, a stamp along his face that didn't fool the once-bastard.

Robert seemed to have sensed Varys' faults as well and squinted at him, swaying on his feet heavily, but nonetheless he let go of his son's arm. "O' course!" he bellowed, shooting a sharp glare at Gendry. "If my own ifamily/i doesn't seem to appreciate what I do for them, then I'm sure that -" he waves his meaty hand, trailing off sharply but indicating that he was talking about everybody else but his own family. "- will appreciate me. Le'go!" He grinned maliciously and began to teeter back towards where he had come. Gendry absently rubbed along his arm, glaring at the man that he used to look up to.

"You iwill/i be present tomorrow, right, your Grace?" Varys inquired, gently yet firmly leading the drunken man towards the exit. "It is best for you to be there when the decision is made." The Baratheon bastard found himself unable to recall just what exactly the talk was of, tomorrow; perhaps it had to do with the massive coin usage. Robert waves his hand dismissively before he slinks through the door. The Spider turns and stares at Gendry before bowing and turns and with a whisk of his robes, disappears after the king, presumably to escort him out of the castle.

Gendry frowns, knowing that due to the Spider's interception of the incident, he'd likely use it as an advantage over the Baratheon bastard and get him to do something - possibly. Gendry frowns, rubbing along his arm before rolling his eyes and turning he almost crashes into the other prince before backpedaling and glaring at him.

"He hit you again," Jon says, not looking surprised. His eyes darken as he glances over towards the door before turning and begins to move noiselessly down the hallway. Gendry follows him without question. He thinks it almost saddening to know that it had become habit for them. He follows the Stark - iBaratheon/i, he corrects himself, no matter if the other boy looked anything like a Baratheon or not - and they sneak off towards their studying room, where some ailments used for their minimum medical training would be. As they swoop into the room, Gendry can't help but notice the papers strewn across the visible desktops, along with what looked like copies of lineages papers and books propped open.

"You were looking for something," Gendry states, not sounding surprised at all. Jon had begun to shift through the chests and drawers in the room before stopping at Gendry's voice.

Jon raises his head and nods briefly, his dark eyes gentle and brooding silently as he stared at Gendry. "Yes," he responds, "I was looking for my father." His mouth curves slightly into a frown. "He is a Highborn, of that much I'm certain," he continues, but there's a cautious undertone to his voice now as he glances towards the door which had been shut after they ushered themselves inside, "or perhaps of stranger origins. I'm ... uncertain at the moment." He sighs and rubs along his brow, before turning and begins to shuffle around the room again, leaving the other bastard in a stationary position before he draws out a cup of salve and cloths. "Mother was quite adamant about keeping quiet about it, though." He hums, moving towards Gendry who took the opportunity to sit down and positioned himself so that his forearm was more accessible.

The Stark-Baratheon drew a chair away from one of the lone tables in the room before dragging it over to where the other Baratheon sat. Jon dipped his hand into the salve and noticeably cringed before drawing his fingers out and pressed it against Gendry's flushed skin, rubbing it in as they had been taught - something about releasing the tension in the muscle and soothing it, Gendry vaguely remembered - before withdrawing his hand. He was about to dip his hand back into the salve when Gendry lashed out unexpectedly, grabbing onto Jon's wrist and bringing his hand closer to his own face, inspecting it.

"You've burned yourself," Gendry says, amazed and appalled all at once. He whipped his head around slowly, narrowing his eyes on his brother's face. "What possessed you to do such a thing?"

Jon flashed an uneasy grin. "Would it be believable if I said I decided to go into your craft and wanted to try my hand at forging metals?" Gendry's expression spoke volumes before he even began to open his mouth in denial, and Jon forced a smile. "Yeah, didn't think so." He trails off then decisively shrugs out of Gendry's grasp and digs his hand back into the solution with more force than needed.

"You shouldn't look for your father," Gendry says, breaking the uneasy silence that fell between them. He shifted uncomfortably. Both Jon and himself got along better with Edric than with each other, and would not often seek out the other's company - at least, until Edric left to be a ward for their uncle Stannis at Dragonstone, which had occurred months ago. The two brothers were forced together and despite their quieter natures - oddly, Gendry realized, which all of them seemed to possess, which was an oddity due to their loud and rambunctious father - they hadn't really gotten along. He mused that it was the unspoken bond between the two that had them forced them apart, a bond that which seemed too odd to be normal; the uncertainty of such a thing left them hesitant in the other's presence. Gendry almost regretted not speaking to the gentle boy, especially when he tended to Gendry so willingly when he could have just as easily let him writhe in pain. "I didn't know who my mother was and Edric's mother .." he paused, trailed off, then continued with a, "just let sleeping dogs lie, Jon. Don't unbury the dead with secrets that you shouldn't know; your mother will reveal who it is in due time. She might not've told you because it really iis/i Robert."

But then he looks up into Jon's face and notices the non-Stark features and already begins to doubt his own suggestion. "Just leave it be, Jon," he says, withholding his slight wince when Jon patted down a cloth on the green and purple bruise before binding it. Before Jon could stand, Gendry lashed out and secured him against the chair. "Stay," he commanded, not unkindly. Jon glared at him with narrowed eyes but did not object, instead silently judging the other Baratheon as the princely blacksmith grabbed onto his hands.

He turns Jon's palms up and inspects them, frowning at the blisters and calluses that creased his hands. Before becoming a legitimate prince, he was a blacksmith's apprentice and could easily recognize burns of varying degrees. Along the finger tips the severity worsened, but all in all it was treatable. "You'll kill your nerves in your hands if you keep this up," he scolds, scooping the salve out of Jon's lap and begins to smooth it into Jon's palm, pretending not to notice the other prince wince at the sure sting that followed.

Gendry felt a soft warm feeling gush in his thumb where it had been nicked not hours before. Familiarity sunk between them, despite the fact that tending to Jon wasn't an everyday occurrence for them. Gendry realized with a sinking feeling that the strange closeness that seemed to follow the pair hadn't dissolved. "Do you burn yourself because of Robert?" the thought struck him, unbidden. "Is this your way of coping?" Irritation flashed through his voice and it only increased when he saw the guilt flash in his brother's cool grey eyes, although he couldn't tell if it was because it iwas/i his way of coping or because of another reason altogether. "Don't."

Jon blinks up at Gendry, who determinedly doesn't look at the other prince. "Don't hurt yourself like this," he murmurs, reaching over for extra bandages and wrapping them around Jon's hands slowly. "We'll get through this." He twitched, thinking of Varys and Robert and Lyanna and wishing a way out of all of this. Jon twitches his fingers, making the Baratheon look startled, realizing that he still held the other's hands captive in his own. "Jon, promise me."

"Of course," Jon replies steadily, not looking into his eyes. Gendry swallowed, realizing that it would be the most that he ever got out of his brother. Jon moves and begins to tenderly pick up the books and sort them onto the shelves properly. Gendry stands up and begins to move the chairs, noticing how quickly and silently the other moved. The once blacksmith frowned and turned towards his brother. Jon was just finishing putting away the lineage papers when he turns and notices Robert's bastard blinking at him. Jon offers a wry smile.

They both make a move towards the door before Jon stops abruptly and with chivalrous intent motioned for Gendry to move forward. Gendry continues forward after a slight nod of his head. They walk down the hallway before they hear the familiar footfalls of Lyanna rushing back inside from her escape from the castle before she rushes off again into the shadows. There's a moment of silence before they glance warily at each other. The doors slam open and a pair of knights escort Robert inside, who seems to have collapsed from the wine consumption. Gendry finds himself scoffing and rolling his eyes, muttering under his breath of how it served him right.

Then Varys walks through the door and pauses, spotting them in the shadows despite how thickly the darkness coated them. He instructs the knights to take the king away, before the eunuch moves over towards the princes with a placid expression, his hands in his sleeves in front of him and his robes whisking across the floor before the bald perfumed man strode over towards them. "I've heard," he begins, knowing that he's caught them, that there was no escape for them and that he could very easily explain to Robert just what exactly they had been doing if he wanted to. The Spider continues speaking in a lazy drawl, "that Shireen is rather lonely on Dragonstone, and only has Edric as company there." There's a dark glint in his eyes as he smiles cryptically at them. "I'm sure that she won't object if two boys suddenly appear there to offer more company for her. I'm fairly certain that as inhospitable as Dragonstone is, nobody would dare look for them there, especially with Lord Stannis there." He looks at them pointedly before twitching his mouth into a calculating smile. "Just something to think about."

Varys turns and leaves, as if he hadn't been there in the first place. They watch the ends of his robes disappear down the corridor to where Lyanna had whisked herself off to. The brothers say nothing and instead creep down the hallway towards their respective bedrooms. Neither of them catch a wink of sleep that night, thoughts of storms and princely titles swarming around in their heads. It takes almost two whole months for them to come to a decision, and plenty of convincing on Gendry's behalf for Jon to leave Lyanna behind. They don't say much to each other until the winds of freedom lash in their faces and the waters and bricks of Dragonstone to touch their skin, do they really realize what it's like to be home, and loved.

Edric welcomes them with open arms and they've never felt safer until that moment.

Shireen is a delight to play with, with a quick mind, gentle manners yet sharp tongue. She knows what others whisper about her and her face, and yet she finds comfort with her cousins, finding joy in their similar studies and of their company alone. Stannis is less kind to them, but after prompting by his daughter, agrees to shelter them from his brother.

It doesn't take as long as they thought it would for Robert to realize that they were missing, and the whole kingdom searches for them. "Perhaps we should have stayed," Jon admits one day, after they narrowly miss a search party. King Robert has sent less out this time, seeming to accept the fact that two of his sons have disappeared.

"And suffer Robert's fury? No," Gendry replies, offering a peach to his brother who accepts it. He swings his legs over the ledge of the tower, frowning despite himself. "Uncle Stannis has agreed to hide us only for so long." His frown deepens and takes a bite out of his own peach. "Robert will calm down; he still has Edric, after all." Jon pulls a face as he bites into his peach and nods, but says nothing else. "But maybe someday we'll return."

"Someday," Jon agrees around a mouthful of peach. When he's finished it, he tosses it over the edge of the tower and into the crashing waves below. "But not today."

Gendry bites into his peach and nods.

For now, all is well. They are safe and cared for and treated properly. They pretend like they weren't princes, like they weren't throwing the kingdom away to be inherited by someone other than them. Edric was the likely heir now, at least, with his exact whereabouts known and his status set to living until proven otherwise. For now, they pretend to be just standard highborn sons. For now, they are okay. For now, they are safe.

Jon breaks Gendry's train of thought with a small smile, "What do you think Dorne is like this time of year?" Gendry turns and throws a peach at Jon's head.

iYes,/i he decided. iThis will be our home until we decide it isn't./i

It stays that way for a long time and with Edric, Jon, and Shireen by his side, he wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
